


Once long ago...and then again, now.

by DestielsDestiny



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 23:05:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/590659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once long ago there was a little boy with blue-blue eyes...this is the man he became.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once long ago...and then again, now.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing.  
> My first posted fanfic-I've just emerged from lurker ville, please be kind : )  
> Inspired by the awesomeness that is Mallory/Bond.  
> Unbetaed, all mistakes are mine.

Once long ago, a story started like this: there was a happy little boy, ethereal with tawny blond hair and searing blue eyes. He lived in a big, drafty house, surrounded by love, warmth, and old wood. How he loved that house, that place, that home of his family’s. 

It shattered like this: that little boy grew a bit, as boys tend to do-more scrawny than some, but prettier than most-eyes the colour of sky on a clear dawn morn. That not quite so little boy doesn’t live at the house any more, not all the time-he’s away at school. Echoing heels in a wood paneled corridor, blankly sympathetic looks and drafty headmasters’ studies sound the death knell that ends that not so little boy’s childhood. 

It bled like this: that boy goes home-bigger over night it seems, bitter, angry, eyes more haunted than searing-to the house, but there is no warmth to take away the bleakness anymore. That boy hides, curling into the house for comfort, but there is none to be had, not there, not anymore. He leaves that place, that is no longer a home, leaving behind echoing laughter, remembered happiness, a lonely old man, and stones bleak with the memories of the fact they once made a home. 

It cauterized like this: the boy is now a man-a very young man, but still a man-those haunting, searing eyes more snapping now, their pristine depths seeming to pierce the woman’s soul. She is a spy, a brilliant mind equally brilliantly disguised behind a secretary like exterior-in the days before gray hair enables her to simply hide behind age, and start wearing sharper clothes. The man-boy, sharp in his navy uniform, doesn’t flinch-or blink-as the woman steps up to those gunmen. That man-boy impresses the woman by asking the gunmen if they want a cup of tea…and then ruins it all by being a stupid idiot and stepping in front of the bullet meant for her. What cheek. 

It rubbed raw like this: that boy, two years older and several bullets wiser, accepts the challenge the woman gives him without ever blinking those periwinkle eyes. The woman is not fooled-or impressed…yet. She’ll have to see...orphans do make the best recruits after all. 

It scabbed over like this: That boy is truly a man now, grown up, flashy new gun and flashier smile. That woman, known simply by a letter to most-but so much more to that man-has groomed him well. It’s time to see what her gamble can do-what her little orphan will grow up to be. That boy, now man, has no home, no family, no ties-perfect for what he is becoming. He still has a heart though, locked somewhere in an old, dusty passageway a million miles from anywhere. A piece of it now belongs to a woman with a letter for a name, however, a letter than doubly signifies who she is to him. 

It hardened like this: He’s ready-she knows he is, until she doesn’t, because he changes his mind. Grasps for those elusive echoes he still feels, echoes that sound of whistling moor winds and smell of dust and fire logs. This new, ever so elusive happiness tastes of sun-drenched sand and ocean spray. It ends in a flash of red and a slice of history lost in a storm of nails and water. The echoes slip away, further than ever. He survives, hardens-proves her right. What a shame, she thinks. 

It flows like this: Years slip by, the man with the ocean blue eyes and the woman with the significantly sharper clothes are a team now. She trusts him-he loves her. She tracks him, he gripes about her awful taste in office decorations. They save the world a time or two, though more usually just a corner of it rather than the whole thing. The house, and the old man, sit forgotten by time, waiting. The boy turned man turned killer forgets, and doesn’t hope anymore. He has Her-his country, his duty, his M. It’s enough. 

It dissolves like this: She makes a call, the wrong one. He is hurt, in so many ways. So is she. Time passes. He is dead. Unknown quantities, new and old, friend and foe and undecided, are stirring. She is in danger, so he returns-so broken, blue eyes so haunted, blond hair shot with grey. He tries so hard, but fails-until she catches him. New variables enter this hopelessly dysfunctional equation. Frizzy curls and snide remarks, creepy hair and creepier teeth, mismatched cardigans with old warships and mathematical mugs, and sharp blue shirts that echo the eyes that match those that wink at them. Intriguing, but irrelevant in that moment-or so he thinks then. He tries-so hard-and so does she, he lives this time, and she dies-for good this time. He fails, but she does not…just this once, she got at least one thing right.

It turns to ashes like this: the house, and the woman, are gone-lost in a blaze of fire, a towering inferno of howling anguish, lost memories, echoed past lives. The mournful stones are gone, only graves remain. The past, this one time home, is finally dead. But the old man is at peace, with his dogs-he knows the boy who became a man who became a killer with winking blue eyes will be fine, even without that feisty old dame. The woman mistakenly called Emma, so brave, so calculating, such a bad shot, is gone. She died cradled by the man she recruited as a boy, and turned into a killer. She gave him his life, and let him keep his soul-what more can one do for one’s children, after all. 

It is reborn like this: She left him two things: an appalling piece of office decoration he’d always hated, that symbolized everything she taught him to believe in-and fight for-, and a family. Those flashing curls, a straight-razor at his throat, those glasses, non-exploding pens and appalling taste in sweaters. And that man, a survivor like him, with blue eyes that met his, and winked. That man who will steady him, guide him, as she once did. That man who will give him something even she, with all her care, could never quite give him back. Somewhere, the smoldering remains of an old house that once was a home gives a final echo-the laughter of a sprite like boy ringing out across a forgotten moor. Here, now, the boy who became a man who became a killer who became James Bond raises his 9mm, sights the target, breaths in, lets hands ending in neatly cuffed blue sleeves close on his shoulders, snaps open laughing sky blue eyes, and fires. Perfect shot. 

We all go looking for family, although maybe not exactly like this: Few of us ever find it, and when we do, it’s usually in the most unlikely of places. For one little boy, it took four decades, but he found it in the end, while running through the streets of a country he’d die for, trying desperately to save the woman who caught him everything, listening to the panicked flurries of a young man with a really bad taste in cardigans, arriving just soon enough-and rather too late in the end. One wink later, and look at that. Now, family smells like dusty stone and old wood again, and it looks like winking blue eyes that mirror his own, piercing blues searing into each other.  
It also looks like a tacky as heck piece of old office decoration-eh, Mallory’s office needs some sprucing up anyway. Plus, wherever that bulldog goes, Bond must follow. Really, it’s a win-win for everyone. 

The moral of this ramble is: once a happy little boy lived, with a loving family. But all little boys must grow up, and he lost his family, and his heart-he thought. Three decades later, a woman called M whom he thought of as a mother gave him back his heart, in the form of an ugly china bulldog with a British flag painted on it. That man, now grown, gave his heart away to someone who also went by M, someone he’d forever know as Gareth Mallory. His M died, but not before she gave Bond his heart back, and included a family and the love of his life in the mix, just to show him she could.


End file.
